Dragonborn Ascension Quest

[Socko525]

I've mentioned the idea a few times here, and one of my players has finally decided to play a Dragonborn, so here goes.

The idea is that the Dragonborn will undergo a side quest around level 5ish to become a half-dragon (granting darkvision, a more powerful breath weapon, has a recharge, etc).

I was thinking maybe he'd get a vision or something that would drive him to go somewhere/to do something, a calling if you will. Basically his untapped draconic heritage is stirring and through the course of some ritual, he'll transform into a silver half-dragon.

Any suggestions on what to make this quest? Silver dragons give me a fair amount of options, especially that whole "love to possess relics of humanoid history" thing.

[MadGrady]

A change of that nature (to me) implies a more radical source of power to make the change. Perhaps he is given a quest by Bahamut (sp?) and as a reward, he will transform him into a greater paragon of his bloodline.

[MinotaurWarrior]

The closest mechanic to this is the reincarnation spell, so I'd go with a variant of the way that spell works. To change your race, you have to die.

Maybe one of the dragon deities needs adventurer abilities. A sort of dragon-valkyrie causes the PC to die and get sent to the afterlife and do X thing that dragons aren't great at (stealth? fighting burrowing creatures?) and after your PC completes the quest, he comes back with more of the blessings of draconic heritage.

[Daishain]

I'd suggest heralding back to the original dragonborn.

In 3.5, Dragonborn was a fairly powerful template that could be applied to any race. Bahamut the Platinum one would call exceptional individuals to his service. Those who chose to answer would swear to fight Tiamat and her corrupted spawn, in exchange they were reborn as dragonborn, granting them much in the way of strength. The rebirth was handled through a ritual in which the subject would craft a shell and crawl inside, awaking the next morning in their new form

Applying that here would not be difficult. The character in question feels called by Bahamut and may speak with a priest or messenger of the same. In exchange for his service in his war against the Dragon Queen, Bahamut is willing to grant him more in the way of Draconic strength. I would probably require that he first undertake a quest to kill one of Tiamat's spawn that has been terrorizing an area in order to earn this boon. (A Blackspawn Stalker or a pack of Belchers make for a very memorable fight) A chromatic dragon would be somewhat more appropriate, but just a bit on the difficult side at L5

[Socko525]

Thank you all! I'm going to grab aspects from everything you've said and roll it all together.

Much appreciated!

[Daishain]

Let us know how it works out.